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Improv for Actors
by Dan Diggles
This step-by-step guide offers actors, acting students, and acting teachers the definitive steps for using improvisation to build practical acting skills. An actor and improvisation teacher brings his tested methods to the page to help actors take risks and gain spontaneity in all genres of scripted theater. This book details how to create a safe, comfortable environment in which actors can experiment without feeling self-conscious and emphasizes improvisation as an act of cooperation, rather than competition.
Through its 28 innovative lessons—each of which includes warm-up routines, points of concentration, and improvisation exercises—this volume offers insights to thinking and reacting with fluidity, developing a greater awareness of fellow actors, becoming a good ensemble player, using the voice and body as effective tools of story-telling, exploring a character’s social status, and much more. By using the clear, simple instructions in this book, actors will be able to take a fresh, original approach to classic characters, give funnier performances in farce and comedy, and make dramatic characters richer and more believable. This is a must-have for thespians of all backgrounds.
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Reviews
“Improv for Actors is a highly valuable resource for actors, directors, students, and faculty who are seeking fresh strategies for discovering and exploring characters, situations, and theatrical play.”
—Mary Fleischer, Chair, Fine & Performing Arts Division, Marymount Manhattan College
“This is an intensely practical handbook and crystal clear in its ability to convey the process of learning the skills of improv. Dan’s masterful book cleverly takes the actor and acting coach on the journey within the art of improvisation—invaluable in today’s world.”
—Eliza Ventura, Founder and Head of Acting, CAP21 Conservatory, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
“[Dan’s] teaching is thoughtful, caring, kind, generous, carefully clarified and inspiring. He is one of the most highly complemented instructors with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of working. While there are many of us who think we know something of acting, there are but a few who really teach it well and Dan is one of those.”
—Gary Sullivan, Department Chairman
Wagner College Theatre Department, Staten Island, NY
“Dan’s dedication to teaching is clearly evident when one observes his class. He has been one of the most sought after instructors in the department because he continues to challenge the student.”
—Bill Bordeaux, Professor of Theatre
Marymount Manhattan College, New York, NY
“Dan Diggles is an outstanding teacher of Improvisation. … [His] technique and style are unmatched... He knows his subject matter inside and out and serves as a role model to his students as a successful working actor and improv artist.”
—Laura Huntsmann, Education Director
The McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ
“Dan’s particular style of improv involves three fundamental rules which teach useful life lessons for anyone who needs to collaborate. [His] constant encouragement and positive outlook are invaluable enhancements to the entertaining and useful content of his classes. ...it will be our good fortune to incorporate many of Dan’s unique approaches to improvisation into our future course work.”
—Allen Kennedy, Senior Teacher
The Dalton School, New York, NY
“Dan…possesses the incredible capacity to ignite and enthuse, all the while teaching both the necessary skills of drama but also the invaluable skills of survival. His teaching carries with it the experience, wisdom and caring that are so particular to him. ... Repeatedly Dan proves that learning can also be fun.”
—Ron DeMaio, Director STAC
Herricks High School, New Hyde Park, NY
“This was the best course I’ve ever taken. Dan Diggles is amazing...”
—A student at Marymount Manhattan College
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